Connotative and Denotative Meaning and Translation Issues

Connotative and Denotative Meaning and Translation Issues. Words may have positive or negative meanings

1. Connotative meaning and Translation Issues ​

2. People use language to communicate. They share ideas, feelings transfer thoughts through language by using words. When people misunderstand what words mean it will have no meaning . The meaning is the core of any language because it is the meaning what gives the words power.  When we talk about the meaning we have to differentiate between  several meaning on the level of word we have denotative meaning and connotative meaning . People need to be aware about how meanings of words differ in different contexts and times. What is the difference between the denotative and connotative meaning?   Why translating the connotative meaning can be a challenge for the translator?  What is the denotative meaning?

3. The denotative meaning: is the literal and exact meaning of a word, the dictionary definition of a word the surface meaning . For example: She is wearing a blue  T-shirt and a pink shoes.

4. What is the connotation?

5. Connotation is the hidden meaning that gives a word more emotional impact it give the reader or the listener a distinct impression or feeling, calling an emotion rather than fact. Through connotation words can reveal hidden opinion, attitude or judgments. Connotation refers to a meaning that is implied by a word apart from the thing which describes explicitly words carry cultural and emotional association or meaning in addition to their literal meaning (Denotation).

6. There are six types of connotative meaning :- 1-   Attitudinal Meaning: The expression doesn't merely denote the referent in a neutral way, but also hints at some attitude to it: For example: House and Home House is a neutral word in English whereas Home has an emotional connotation

7.    Place Building Where you live Feel safe Happy Secure (Denotative meaning)   (Connotative meaning) House Home

8. 2- Associative meaning: It may consist of expectations wrongly associated with the referent that are rightly or of the expression: For example : the word ( Crusade ) has strongly positive association with English , whereas حملة صليبية   its Arabic equivalent has a negative association the Crusades to Palestine in the Middle Age.

9. 3- Affective meaning: It related to the emotive effect worked on the addressee by the choice of expression: For example: the two expressions (silence please & shut up) share the same in Arabic اسكت and the denotative meaning (be quite). The speaker in first one produce a polite effect and the second one produce an impolite one. So the speaker attitude to the listener produce a different affective impact.

10. 4-Allusive meaning: It occur when an expression evokes an associated saying or quotation in such a way that the meaning of that saying or quotation becomes part of the overall meaning of the expression For example, the oath الالتزام التام بالإخلاص و الثقة والسمع والطاعة في العسر و اليسر والمنشط و المكره . which members of the Muslim Brotherhood swore to their leader, alludes to the Quranic verses: إن مع العسر يسراً . إن مع العسر يسراً

11. 5- Reflective meaning: The meaning given to the expression over and above the denotative meaning which it has in that context by the fact that it also calls to mind another meaning or the same word or phrase: For example: the word حمار in Arabic to call someone it connotatively mean he is ( stupid)  and also refer to an animal ( Donkey)  which is the context provides a connotative reflected meaning. 

12. 6- Collocative meaning: The associations a word acquires on account of the meaning of words which tend to occur in its environment For example: Pretty and handsome share the common grounds of ( good looking ) but they are differentiated by the range of noun with which they are likely to occur Pretty collocate girl, Garden, women and flower, while handsome collocates boy, man ,vessel, etc .

13. Words may have positive or negative connotations that depend upon social, cultural and personal experience of individuals For example, the words  childish ,  childlike  and  youthful   have the same denotative, but different connotative, meanings.  Childish   and  childlike   have a negative connotation, as they refer to immature behavior of a person. Whereas,  youthful  implies that a person is lively and energetic.

14. look to these sentences:- 1- The woman slammed the door behind her and threw her jacket. 2- The woman closed the door behind her and hung her jacket. The first sentence uses words with negative connotation ( slammed ), giving the feeling that the woman had a difficult day. The second uses positive and neutral ( closed) giving the feeling that the woman had a successful day. As can be seen, choosing words based on their connotation can make for two very different tones.

15. it’s important to remember that the audience will be faced with the task of decoding the words that we choose to retrieve the meaning. If we share a word intentionally or unintentionally with a negative connotation, the audience will feel the impact of that word and have an emotional reaction. Audience may feel uncomfortable, become distracted, or tune out completely.  It is important to note that not all connotations are simply positive or simply negative, depending on how a word is used, it can connote different things.

16. When the translator doesn’t have any cultural background of the source language then he will face difficulties conveying the exact meaning. Language is a part of culture and therefore translation from one language to another can not be done adequately without a knowledge of the two cultures. The successful translator has to cope with the different shades of word meanings, which are in non-literary translation. 

17. References: Dr . Mohammed El Haj Ahmed Assistant Professor of Translation, Connotation-https://studylib.net www.slideserve.com/ivana/connotative-meaning-and-translation-issues https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/148399177.pdf Semantics.pdf.by  Hilman_Pardede,FKIP2016

18. By : Nancy Haddad & Alaa Al- Rajabi Dr. Khaleel B. Al Bataineh Department of English Language and Translation